I noted with interest that, soon after taking power at the 18th Party Congress, China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, ceremoniously led the new Politburo Standing Committee to view a museum exhibit in Beijing entitled, The Road to Renewal (復興之路). It chronicled China’s descent into the “Century of Humiliation” following the Opium War and, since 1949,its subsequent revival and rise to power under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. Perhaps this visit was Xi Jinping’s symbolic pledge to the Chinese people to rectify past injustices and return China to the unchallenged primacy it once had in Asia before the arrival of Western imperialism.
我饒有興趣地注意到，在18大掌權後不久，中國新任領導人習近平曾率領新一屆中央政治局常委，隆重地到北京某博物館參觀了《復興之路》展覽。這個展覽記錄了中國在鴉片戰爭後經歷的「百年恥辱」，以及自1949年以來中國在共產黨領導下的復興和崛起歷程。這次參觀或許是習近平向中國人民許下的象徵性承諾：誓將洗刷中國過去的屈辱，恢復西方帝國主義到來前中國在亞洲曾經享有的絕對優勢地位。